How harmful are cigarette butts to the environment?

They look small and innocent, but cigarette butts are persistent litter full of toxins. Cigarette filters are far from bio-degradable. The filter material is made from cellulose acetate (a sort of foam plastic) which breaks down in the ocean into minuscule fragments which end up in the stomachs of fish, birds and marine mammals.

No fewer than 4,200 chemical breakdown products have been found in butts. These substances include herbicides, fungicides and insecticides: all products which are used in the cultivation of tobacco.

Cigarette smoke also contains carcinogens like ammonia, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide and arsenic which are trapped in the filter in concentrated form. These are chemically toxic substances which quickly leach out in contact with water and seep into the soil. Just one butt per 40 litres of water will give a toxic concentration for more than 7 days.

The dense concentration of toxins in butts has an environmental impact on water and soil. These substances also have a harmful effect on small crustaceans, water fleas and bacteria which are important to the food chain.

But butts on the street can also cause quite a different problem. Wildlife think that butts are food. Ingesting butts can block the gullet and cause them to starve to death. In certain circumstances it can lead to breathing problems. Wildlife directly affected by this are birds in urban areas and coastal areas and fish. In 2003 the UN International Maritime Organisation reported that cigarette butts are the direct cause of disorders in 177 species of whale and 11 species of sea bird.

The filters in cigarette butts do not easily degrade naturally. Research in this area indicates a biological degradability of between 1 and 15 years.